The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Christian Nationalism Debate And The Need For Unity w Voddie Baucham

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00:00:40.820 Hi, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with

00:00:45.640 Right Response Ministries. And in this particular episode, I'm very privileged to welcome onto the

00:00:50.980 show for the first time someone that, even though it's our first time discussing these things

00:00:56.000 together, I have from a distance, as many of you listening have, been immensely blessed by his

00:01:01.780 public preaching and writing and ministry. So, without further ado, let's welcome our guest,

00:01:07.840 Pastor Votie Bauckham. Mercy Meadows Ranch is a family-owned and operated cattle company

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00:03:34.960 This is Theology Applied.

00:03:41.340 Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with

00:03:45.740 Right Response Ministries. And in this particular episode, I'm very privileged to have, for the

00:03:50.400 first time, Vodhi Bauckham. Vodhi, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's good to be with

00:03:55.600 would you just take a moment uh probably most of our listeners are very aware of your ministry and

00:04:01.740 who you are but would you just take a moment and introduce yourself and what you've been doing and

00:04:05.740 what you're currently doing for the kingdom of god wow yeah i um have been a pastor church planter

00:04:14.380 for a while and eight years ago in fact it would be eight years in august um the lord called us

00:04:22.260 away from the church that we had planted. We planted the church planting church in the

00:04:28.240 greater Houston area in North Houston in Spring. And God calls us away from there to come to

00:04:33.380 Lusaka, Zambia, to help start the African Christian University here in Lusaka, partnering

00:04:40.180 with the Reformed Baptist Churches of Zambia. And so for the last, again, almost eight years,

00:04:45.940 that's where we've been

00:04:47.860 that's what I've been about

00:04:49.340 I'm back in the U.S. three or four times a year

00:04:52.560 to do short preaching tours

00:04:54.780 but

00:04:56.440 we're here

00:04:58.340 we've been here

00:04:59.480 we've decided to come for three to five years

00:05:02.520 it's now

00:05:04.280 three plus five

00:05:05.320 so I don't know what that means

00:05:08.260 but we're here until the Lord says otherwise

00:05:10.820 Praise God

00:05:12.900 yeah I have been

00:05:14.800 blessed from a distance watching your ministry reading some of the books that you've written

00:05:18.900 and you know i recently said in one of my podcasts and maybe even one of my sermons

00:05:22.540 i am post-millennial in my eschatology um but uh that doesn't mean that uh god exalts nations and

00:05:30.060 he decimates them when they're faithless to him and so uh within my eschatology you know it could

00:05:35.360 be 5 000 50 000 years before jesus returns i we don't know it could be five years but uh there's

00:05:41.360 no promise that america will endure so i've been encouraging christians to fight for our nation but

00:05:46.560 also save up for their grandkids uh zambia fund yeah go ahead and move over there with you in

00:05:52.540 case america becomes unlivable so yeah yeah no it's interesting i always all right i always tell

00:05:58.800 people you know i'm i'm millennial in my eschatology but i tell people you know i live

00:06:04.780 post mill wherever I am. Um, so, uh, you know, I, I, I get you, you know, I'm, I call myself

00:06:10.860 optimistic all mill, you know? Right. Amen. Yeah. A lot of my friends are optimistic all mill and

00:06:16.720 they're, and they're trying to live faithfully, uh, like, you know, in their daily lives, like

00:06:21.280 a post mill. And the thing that surprised me, surprises me is that actually, um, some of the

00:06:25.600 guys who are like the most ferocious fighters, um, not saying it's just a cultural war, but it's

00:06:30.880 both it is a spiritual war but here's what i always tell people it's a spiritual war but between who

00:06:35.460 right i mean god satan um but here's the thing god cares about the world not just the 17th dimension

00:06:42.840 in the ethereal plane like he cares about the world satan cares about the world democrats care

00:06:47.340 about the world it seems as though the only entity i'm aware of that doesn't care about the physical

00:06:51.580 tangible world is evangelicals that said um i think some dispy pre-meal kind of guys uh even

00:06:59.760 though I would disagree with their eschatology, some of those guys are the most faithful fighters

00:07:03.980 in the culture war, not at the expense of recognizing it is first and foremost a spiritual

00:07:09.120 war, but spiritual wars have cultural implications. They have tangible implications. And so to say,

00:07:16.320 we're going to try to hit it at the head, go to the root. But it's both and, it's not either or.

00:07:23.320 Do you have any thoughts on that? No, I mean, I agree wholeheartedly. And, you know, living in

00:07:28.820 Xavier for the last seven, almost eight years has really just sort of reinforced that for me.

00:07:35.360 You know, coming here and living here has helped me to really see and appreciate the fruit that

00:07:43.520 the gospel has borne in the United States. And it is an incredible blessing to live in and to have

00:07:53.020 been born in and raised in and inculcated in a society that has so much residue from

00:08:03.920 its Christian heritage that we really take for granted. 0.98

00:08:08.080 Right.

00:08:09.380 Yeah, from the Christian heritage.

00:08:11.480 I heard you with Tom Askell recently saying that the Zambians, the Christians in our nation,

00:08:18.720 we envy their preamble, a distinctly Christian preamble.

00:08:22.160 um but that they actually envy our heritage and that the heritage the preamble matters right why

00:08:28.480 why not both let's have both if we if we can't let's work towards both but uh but that the

00:08:32.960 heritage um has stronger implications in in the here and now could you could you flesh that out

00:08:38.760 a little bit what do you see is the heritage of america yeah it just i've often said that

00:08:47.460 If you want to know everything that you need to know about a culture, just experience a four-way stop.

00:08:56.700 And you'll see what's really ingrained in the culture, whether people are stopping, waiting their turn, being courteous, or whether the only law is the law of physics and whether or not I can get my bumper in front of yours.

00:09:13.480 And, you know, it's interesting, you know, in the United States, you can be on the road, middle of the night and, you know, at a red light, you stop that that's that's part of our heritage, you know, and living in parts of the world where, you know, that that's just not that's just not the thing.

00:09:36.860 And again, that's just a small example. There are many, many more, but that's just one really sort of tangible example. Another one is, you know, I live in a city, I live in the capital city here in Osaka, and most people walk here in Osaka, but there are almost no sidewalks.

00:09:55.860 um in in the u.s very few people are walking where they're going but we have sidewalks everywhere

00:10:04.200 and that's part of our heritage right that that's that's part of our heritage in terms of

00:10:10.860 not just infrastructure either but in terms of value of life protection of life um you know

00:10:18.420 There are little things like that all over the place that just remind me of that long-rooted heritage and culture.

00:10:30.380 Amen.

00:10:30.980 Yeah, I think part of the problem, this is one of my suspicions, but I think part of the problem is as America drifted the American church in terms of its doctrine and false gospels like the prosperity gospel, sometimes there's an overreaction.

00:10:44.340 And I think at some level in our defense in shoring up the true gospel of Jesus Christ

00:10:50.460 against particularly the false gospel of prosperity, we almost threw out the baby with the bath

00:10:57.000 water in regards to a simple biblical principle, in my assessment, which is that obedience

00:11:01.840 brings blessing.

00:11:03.900 And not just blessing, it guarantees blessing in the life to come.

00:11:07.640 Yeah. But ordinarily, and I'll give that qualifier ordinarily, ordinarily obedience brings blessing in this life as well. And that's that's not the prosperity. What I always tell people is the prosperity gospel is the equivalent of me teaching my children that when they turn 18 every single Friday, they should stop at the same liquor store and buy a lottery ticket and play the same numbers. And if they do it faithfully long enough, eventually they'll be rich. Right. It's the prosperity gospel is the power of positivity. It's manifesting.

00:11:35.860 it's about faith in our faith, it's hopeful, it's wishing. That's very different than the basic

00:11:41.560 biblical principle of hard work, ordinarily, is fruitful. Now, there are some contexts that break

00:11:48.000 the mold. There's always exceptions. There's some faithful Christians in North Korea that aren't

00:11:52.460 seeing a lot of fruit. But that's why I say ordinarily. But in a country like America, 1.00

00:11:58.120 the Christian can expect that obedience would produce a certain measure of a blessing,

00:12:05.160 not just in the life to come, but even in this life as well.

00:12:08.600 And so we look at whether it's the four-way stop and we're courteous, you know, and waiting

00:12:12.100 our turn with the right of way, or whether it's, you know, the sidewalks and the things

00:12:16.560 that you've mentioned, seeing these as tangible physical blessings in this world, in this

00:12:21.620 life, but they're directly correlated to obedience to the Word of God, where the Word

00:12:26.860 of God is received and honored and esteemed and obeyed, not just by individuals, but in

00:12:34.220 societies at large, we should expect there to be tangible blessings. But I think we've just

00:12:39.840 become so spiritual. Everything's spiritual. We'll reject the prosperity gospel, and we kind of

00:12:45.480 threw out in rejecting the prosperity gospel, throwing out the baby with the bathwater with

00:12:51.040 that very biblical principle, obedience brings blessing. God is sovereign over the ends as well

00:12:56.840 the means, right? And so with my children, God is sovereign over the salvation of my children,

00:13:04.960 but the sovereign God has also given me means. He's given me very clear instructions about

00:13:10.960 bringing up my children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, about me washing them 0.75

00:13:18.860 and my wife with the water of the word, again, the ends and the means. The other thing is that

00:13:25.660 you say, you know, that obedience should bring blessing. But the fact of the matter is that

00:13:30.420 obedience has brought blessing. If you look at a globe and you ask yourself, where are the freest,

00:13:38.860 most prosperous, right? You know, safest people in the world, where are women most protected?

00:13:47.900 Where are women safest? Where do they have most protection and most rights in the world? 1.00

00:13:53.120 The answer is follow the Protestant Reformation, right? 0.74

00:13:58.040 Where are the lowest corruption rates in the world? 0.57

00:14:01.140 Everybody's got some corruption, right?

00:14:02.540 But where are the lowest corruption rates? 0.98

00:14:03.940 The answer is follow the Protestant Reformation. 0.58

00:14:06.900 Even in Europe, Northern Europe versus Southern Europe, there's a huge difference.

00:14:12.240 Protestant Reformation.

00:14:13.500 Western Europe versus Eastern Europe.

00:14:15.500 Protestant Reformation.

00:14:17.600 And so, yeah, there not only should be, but there is blessing.

00:14:22.280 And I think it's not only ironic, but sad that we refuse to acknowledge that. And in fact, if you think about it, the people who are, you know, complaining the most, for example, you know, where are women protesting the most about, you know, not having rights and not having protections in those parts of the world where they have it more than anybody else?

00:14:46.500 You know, I live in a part of the world where not too far from here, female genital mutilation is the norm, right? And child brides and selling brides, you know, that's a real thing, not too far from where I am. So, you know, again, I think you're right. I would just add that caveat, not only should it bring blessing, but it has.

00:15:11.320 well that's great i love your caveat because i was trying to go real reasonable play the good

00:15:16.980 cop i'll let you do the bad because i was trying to be real reasonable say you know it could

00:15:21.860 obedience might can we at least consider it might bring blessing and i love that you said no no no

00:15:26.600 no it does bring blessing because i i agree so i i see in many ways it feels like um you and i would

00:15:33.940 both agree neutrality is a myth um the myth of neutrality uh that that all laws are moral um

00:15:39.300 that that and i'm not saying you're necessarily comfortable with this word but i would i'll just

00:15:43.900 speak for myself i would see that uh for every individual for every family for every um for

00:15:48.900 every nation that is in the civil realm every government that that it is theocratic uh which

00:15:53.860 for the record that scares people a theocracy is very distinct from an ecclesiocracy i'm i've never

00:16:00.260 advocated for a church-run state i'm not advocating for a protestant pope um but i do think that that

00:16:06.780 the reality is that theocracy, not ecclesiocracy, separation of church and state, but no separation

00:16:12.140 of Christ and state. Caesar is under God. Caesar is a servant. He's a deacon. He is not head of

00:16:19.600 himself. So every single entity, both the family, the church, and the state, it's not excluded from

00:16:26.180 this principle, there is a God above them. And it's not whether but which. It is a theocracy.

00:16:31.240 It's either a theocracy that ultimately is underneath in submission to the triune God

00:16:37.020 as God, or it's Demos, the people, or the state, it's statism, totalitarianism, all

00:16:42.520 these different things, or it's pagan, some pagan God.

00:16:45.200 And so with all that being said, it seems like we've switched gods in the West.

00:16:50.420 And you could argue at the time, you know, 50 years ago, 130 years ago, you could go

00:16:54.580 back to the Enlightenment, you know, or whatever, but we've switched gods.

00:16:57.860 and it seems like you know this this these ships move slowly um because of the principle of sowing

00:17:04.500 you know uh sowing and reaping um and and and god's faithfulness he will not be mocked and so

00:17:08.800 you sow you sow good seed you're going to reap a harvest for a while after you stop sowing and so

00:17:13.980 these ships chrysidom and and i think paganism that they they have been kind of slowly passing

00:17:21.180 in the night and it seems like there was not just a couple weeks or months or years but decades in

00:17:26.400 our nation where the two ships were kind of like like side by side they had lined up for a moment

00:17:31.320 and it was it was seemingly because they move slow a long moment that gave the optic that that

00:17:36.980 neutrality is viable uh that it actually works but it doesn't and and i'm of the persuasion that

00:17:44.280 secularism is not viable uh that it's actually a placeholder it functions as as not a host but but

00:17:50.500 a parasite once it's killed its host namely chrysidom that that secularism will actually

00:17:55.500 only be replaced by some form of paganism. And it seems as though that's been ramping up. And a lot 0.67

00:18:01.760 of young guys like me are seeing that because we haven't lived the majority of our lives in our

00:18:07.940 adult lives. My adult life was not in the 70s, in the 80s, in the 90s. I was a little kid born in

00:18:15.120 the 80s. And so a lot of my adult life, what I've seen is classical liberalism and some of our

00:18:22.760 our systems utterly failing. And so I don't have a strong dog in the fight of like, we got to get

00:18:29.540 back to that. So there's a lot of young guys right now are like, let's be Christian. Let's be a

00:18:34.760 Christian nation. And let's bring that into the civil realm. What would you say to young guys

00:18:39.580 like me? Where are we? Is there too much zeal? Are we on track? What are we doing right? What

00:18:46.940 are we maybe doing wrong? Yeah, I think there are a couple of issues at play. And one of those

00:18:52.320 issues is, um, kind of a, a theological nearsightedness, uh, theological, um, ignorance.

00:19:00.700 And I think for a long time, you think about the, the church growth movement all the way

00:19:06.400 from the Jesus movement, right?

00:19:07.980 In the sixties and seventies, um, this sort of big revivalist movement and, you know,

00:19:13.940 churches growing and then the church growth movement, um, you know, I'm 54.

00:19:20.700 Um, I, I came to faith, you know, at 18. Um, and so I saw a lot of that stuff, right.

00:19:29.900 And there was this sense in which, you know, if you just pull the right levers, um, the church

00:19:37.400 would grow and, you know, and then the, the religious right, right. Comes along. And again,

00:19:45.520 And if we just use our influence, you know, if we just have the right people in the right place, then we can get the people that we need in the places that we need and, you know, we can make things happen.

00:19:59.440 Because, again, we're this big, powerful behemoth with churches that have thousands of people.

00:20:08.080 And in the midst of that, what we weren't doing was thinking.

00:20:12.940 What we weren't doing was theology.

00:20:15.520 We became extremely pragmatic during that time.

00:20:21.740 And so we've got a couple of generations now of people who have been raised in pragmatic Christianity, who haven't been thinking, who weren't mentored or discipled by people who thought very much other than, you know, pragmatism.

00:20:39.680 And now when this generation hits a crisis, all we've got is knee jerk reactions.

00:20:49.400 We've got nothing that's well thought out.

00:20:52.580 And so that's why you see sort of shouting matches from people going off half cocked who are using terminologies and promoting ideologies with which they've only become familiar recently.

00:21:05.700 um and and i think that's what we're seeing right now right yeah i i think that i think that that's

00:21:15.520 absolutely true um it's tough with the pragmatism thing it's tough for me um because i don't want

00:21:24.180 to be pragmatic i see the drawbacks with that but one of the the debates that i've been in

00:21:30.300 lately with some of my Baptist brothers is, well, it's got to be bottom up. If there is going to be

00:21:38.260 revival or reformation, if there is going to be a stop, if we're going to put a stop to

00:21:46.020 drag queen story hour, sexual mutilation of children, 65 million plus babies murdered in 0.56

00:21:54.820 their mother's wombs, it's got to be bottom up through the preaching of the gospel,

00:22:00.300 regenerate hearts um we need more christians and yet i i feel like it's it's never less than that

00:22:08.940 so my argument is never an alternative to that i'm a local pastor first and foremost i preach

00:22:14.460 the gospel um so it's never less than that that's the tip of the spear but in addition to that i

00:22:21.820 feel like now you can make an argument that in the 70s and the 80s and even the 50s and 60s

00:22:27.100 that our numbers were skewed, that we were bolstering in typical Southern Baptist fashion,

00:22:32.900 you know, a lot more on the roster than there actually are in the pew, that the numbers were

00:22:36.520 skewed and that we had a lot of people attending church and professing Christ, but they weren't

00:22:39.960 actually regenerate. And so you can say, because what I'm about to say is I think we've had the

00:22:44.160 numbers and it still failed. That's kind of what you just said. And then I know some of my brothers

00:22:48.200 would say, but we didn't really have the true numbers because there wasn't solid, faithful

00:22:53.200 gospel preaching that actually converts the soul and i see all of that this is my one my one push

00:22:59.340 back to to to not even what you said but to to some of my brothers is the sodomites took three

00:23:05.600 percent less than three percent of the population and with a 40 to 50 year plan they have effectively 0.64

00:23:12.140 replaced the flag of the united states of america with a rainbow and my point in saying that is

00:23:19.400 that um it's never less than bottom-up gospel preaching regeneration new hearts and yet at the

00:23:27.020 same time um there are christians now who actually as individual christians not just churches talking

00:23:34.500 about politics individual christian men serving as civil magistrates and and they're wanting to know

00:23:40.800 how how can i be a city council member christianly does the bible say something to me in my vocation

00:23:49.220 or is it just the sphere of home and church and if the bible does like am i supposed to be a

00:23:55.340 christian in every realm of life but when i walk into this sphere the public sphere that i take

00:24:02.660 that christian hat off that i lay it aside i adopt neutral terms um and or can i say yeah it's got

00:24:11.580 to be bottom-up, preach, regeneration, salvation, discipleship, and at the same time that we can

00:24:18.920 ethically and even must, commanded by God ethically, to pull some of these state levers

00:24:24.640 in a Christian direction. What do you think? I'm always skeptical. Whenever somebody says to me, 0.78

00:24:32.500 it has to be dot, dot, dot. That's not the God I serve, right? Sometimes the king finds the

00:24:42.940 word of God and revival breaks out, right? That's right. So yeah, I'm never comfortable

00:24:51.140 when someone says it has to be this or it has to be that. I think the answer is all of the above.

00:25:01.480 I think the answer is faithfulness wherever we find ourselves, right?

00:25:05.980 That has to be the answer, you know, faithfulness wherever we find ourselves.

00:25:13.120 Amen.

00:25:14.180 So talk to me about Fault Lines.

00:25:16.380 You wrote the book.

00:25:18.040 I read the book.

00:25:18.960 Me and everybody in the whole world, it seems.

00:25:20.880 I mean, it was a popular book.

00:25:22.420 Was it a bestseller?

00:25:23.920 Did it make any bestselling list?

00:25:25.400 Yeah, it did.

00:25:26.100 Congratulations.

00:25:27.560 Well done.

00:25:28.060 You earned it.

00:25:28.840 It was a great book.

00:25:29.820 it was it just you and you before writing the book you've been doing this you know through

00:25:33.900 preaching and teaching and conferences um the ethnic gnosticism did you you coined that right

00:25:38.800 that term yeah so and all the way back i think and correct me if i'm not giving you enough credit but

00:25:43.980 it's as early as 2012 you were kind of sounding some of these alarms yeah really earlier than

00:25:50.000 that you know okay yeah really really earlier than that well done so i mean you you saw these

00:25:57.040 things long before i did you know and i i'd like to give myself a little bit of an excuse and say

00:26:02.460 that you were seeing things when i was still in high school you know so maybe maybe you know

00:26:06.300 maybe i you know providentially i was born a little bit too late but uh yeah you've done an

00:26:11.700 excellent job fault lines was so helpful putting words to certain things because because everybody

00:26:16.160 i mean there's so many christians in the pews they're just like what is going on why why why

00:26:21.300 are two men that I that I respect and I've respect for years all of a sudden at each other's throats

00:26:27.700 and and drifting apart and now I think people have made sense of it right 2017 18 19 so in 2018

00:26:34.700 just for context so I was an Acts 29 pastor uh we left um I pulled the church out in 2018 right

00:26:42.080 after Eric Mason wrote woke church and so um when that happened I pulled our church out of Acts 29

00:26:48.160 I spent all of 2019 with my elders and leaders in the church saying, I'm tired of doing theology

00:26:54.840 a la carte. I don't want to just be a Calvinistic Baptist. Praise God, bless them. But I'd like to

00:27:00.520 be a confessionally reformed Baptist. So we spent a year, every single week, hours working through

00:27:06.660 the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. We were able to adopt that. At the end, 0.89

00:27:11.860 I was pastoring Southern California, 2020 hit. So this is right before March, 2020.

00:27:16.140 things go crazy uh we have some disagreements on how to respond to covid um i i'm saying let's

00:27:24.220 open the church there's some other guys saying open the church there's some other guys saying

00:27:27.200 let's not um the lord works through that eventually you know things are good we opened let the record

00:27:33.480 state we opened um a good six weeks before macarthur made it cool and so now granted it's

00:27:39.480 It's easier to open a 150-person church than a 10,000-person church.

00:27:45.600 But we did open before MacArthur.

00:27:48.040 And then at the end, I'm from Texas.

00:27:52.540 My wife's parents moved to Texas.

00:27:54.240 Her sisters and husbands and kids moved to Texas.

00:27:56.420 My parents are in Texas.

00:27:57.960 And 2020 really made me miss Texas.

00:28:00.720 And so we ended up leaving.

00:28:02.720 Me too.

00:28:04.780 Yeah, exactly.

00:28:05.940 so we handed the church over to faithful faithful guys and the church is doing well uh but but we

00:28:10.900 left and and planting you know doing a new work here in georgetown texas just north of austin

00:28:14.900 texas and uh far enough for the police not to be defunded and close enough for people to commute

00:28:19.260 to work and so we you know we're doing a work here but my point in saying all that is that um

00:28:24.400 fault lines uh was you know you know i was seeing some of these things 2017 18 really

00:28:31.580 psalm 2020 your book makes sense of it you know gave it gave some extra clarity and hindsight

00:28:37.340 and for a lot of other evangelicals and realizing you know russell moore god bless him he's not on

00:28:42.420 my team he's not on our team uh david french is not on our team um francis collins is not on our

00:28:47.860 team um and and so boom i feel like we kind of with wokeness with with uh positions on the state

00:28:54.200 and tyranny and and the branch covidians and all the you know whatever you want to call it

00:28:57.560 We lost about half the team, it feels like. 0.88

00:29:00.460 It does feel like that, yeah.

00:29:01.620 But now it's like, are we about to lose?

00:29:05.700 Are we about to – is the team going to split again?

00:29:08.860 Because it's like the first set of fault lines was over who sees the problem.

00:29:12.900 And it seems as though there may be some new fault line shaping up over who sees the solution.

00:29:19.380 Unite us, buddy.

00:29:21.100 Help us not divide.

00:29:23.140 What do you think?

00:29:24.360 Yeah.

00:29:25.540 Division is necessary.

00:29:27.560 um division is absolutely necessary division brings clarity and ultimately it brings real unity

00:29:34.920 um you know the fact of the matter is the the people who divided um over all of these things um

00:29:45.080 weren't with us wholeheartedly one day and then turned into different people the next

00:29:53.560 these crises revealed underlying ideologies and commitments that had always been there

00:30:06.960 on both sides, you know, it revealed.

00:30:10.600 Every man has an allegiance.

00:30:11.940 Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:13.200 And, you know, but here was the issue.

00:30:16.720 There were always disagreements, right?

00:30:20.500 Even in, you know, sort of these broader Reformed circles, whether you call it Young Restless and Reformed, New Calvinism, you know, whatever you want to call it. 0.64

00:30:30.880 These circles that were really sort of growing and percolating, you know, during that time that brought about the sort of Acts 29s and the T4Gs and the Gospel Coalitions and all of these sorts of things. 0.90

00:30:42.980 Everybody knew that there were divisions, that there was a lack of agreement, right? 0.63

00:30:51.300 We had our Presbyterians and our Baptists and, you know, our Dispensationalists and Reformed.

00:30:58.340 And, you know, we had all of that and everybody acknowledged that we had those differences, yet there was something greater that was holding us together, right?

00:31:09.300 And so I don't think that, you know, with the Black Lives Matter movement and with COVID and all this, that somehow, you know, people change.

00:31:23.880 I think the stakes changed. 0.58

00:31:26.400 I think that these movements actually, you know, drew a line in the sand, right?

00:31:33.200 They drew fault lines and they were non-negotiables.

00:31:40.200 They were more non-negotiable than pedo-baptism, credo-baptism, right?

00:31:49.860 So it's not that we didn't have disagreements before.

00:31:54.080 It's that these things came about and these things became non-negotiables.

00:31:59.680 And the culture made them non-negotiables, right?

00:32:02.780 The culture is the one that said, you know, if you're if you're wrong on this issue, racial justice as defined by the culture, you're outside the camp and there is no, you know, going along to get along.

00:32:17.600 There is no neutrality on this issue. Right.

00:32:20.900 Baptism, you know, we can disagree on and go our own ways.

00:32:24.460 But this issue of, you know, so-called racial justice, that's something where you disqualify yourself.

00:32:32.780 So that's what we saw. That's what happened. And then all of a sudden, now we're seeing, you know, the other shoe that dropped. And I remember, right, I'm in the middle of, you know, being entrenched, you know, fault lines and all the attacks that are coming because of fault lines.

00:32:50.400 And, you know, people, you know, using means legitimate and illegitimate, you know, to try to to try to discredit fault lines.

00:32:59.400 And all of a sudden, you know, I felt like there was real traction.

00:33:05.300 I felt like there were a lot of people who were saying, yes, amen and thank you.

00:33:10.420 Right. And then there was more boldness in in in.

00:33:15.660 in what was

00:33:18.000 in the side of the argument that had been

00:33:20.480 forced into silence, right?

00:33:22.680 There was more boldness in that side of the

00:33:24.420 argument. And then all of a sudden, out of

00:33:26.420 nowhere, you almost get whiplash because

00:33:28.280 people start going, yeah, well,

00:33:30.340 you're worried about CRT, but what about

00:33:32.520 this white Christian nationalism?

00:33:38.140 Like, what?

00:33:39.760 Wait a minute, what?

00:33:41.600 You know?

00:33:43.180 And they start,

00:33:44.740 you know, citing books by people who are barely in the camp, if at all, um, you, you, you know,

00:33:55.540 um, and, and I think a lot of us at that point were going, okay, first of all, um, define your

00:34:02.620 terms, you know, like, like, what do you mean? What are you talking about? Um, define your terms.

00:34:09.520 You're saying like, like, um, like don't just talk past each other on Twitter, maybe take the

00:34:13.620 time to write like a statement on your terms of christian nationalism defining what you mean

00:34:19.500 like if someone did that for instance just hypothetically just hypothetically you know

00:34:24.540 and but the great thing about statements you know because again in 2000 and and um you know man

00:34:31.460 covid just messed up the calendar i think it was the social justice statement yeah 18 was that was

00:34:37.680 it 18 or 19 i think it was 18 or 19 yeah um you know when we came out i signed it proudly yeah

00:34:43.360 When we came up with that statement, you know, on social justice in the gospel, you know, the great thing about that was that it was a way for people to be identified.

00:34:58.740 Right.

00:34:59.480 Right.

00:34:59.700 It was a way for people to say yay or nay.

00:35:02.840 And that's what that's what statements and confessions and things like that do.

00:35:07.200 Right.

00:35:08.100 They get rid of the squishiness, you know.

00:35:11.740 And, you know, sometimes people will say, yes, but and they have a legitimate, you know, grief.

00:35:21.400 And they'll say this, you know, technical issue right here, you know, the way you worded that or the way, you know, whatever.

00:35:28.080 Right. And that's fine. That's great, because that helps the people who write the statement to sort of massage it, you know, if necessary.

00:35:35.580 um but what we experienced was people just going um no and we're going okay why where

00:35:46.300 just no it's not wrong um it's just pastorally unwise and insensitive right it's not it's not

00:35:55.240 what the statement says yeah it's what it does yes exactly yeah yeah yeah tim keller tim keller

00:36:01.800 Yeah. It's not what it says. It's what it does. Yeah. That, that was, that was, that was classic right there. But my point, but, you know, my point is that at first, you know, the people who were using the term Christian nationalism, they've always liked Christian nationalism.

00:36:19.120 Because, again, for the neo-Marxist and for the intersectional, you know, people, you know, you use all three of those terms because the demonic, hegemonic, oppressive power in the United States is, you know, white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, native born, you know, able-bodied, you know, on down to.

00:36:48.140 and then you get to you know christian right christianity is is is at the root of the hegemonic

00:36:53.460 power so when you say that's what they hate yes that's what they hate everything else exactly is

00:36:58.240 just an angle towards exactly exactly it's all about they hate christ yes so when you say white

00:37:03.780 christian nationalism you get an intersectional boogeyman right and so that's right the the the

00:37:10.480 lack of clarity was coming from the people who were using that terminology so when i say define

00:37:14.920 terms, you know, I was like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? I might be, I might be

00:37:20.300 right there with you. You know, I might agree that it's, you know, CRT is a problem and this

00:37:26.420 thing, whatever you're, you know, defining is a problem. And then I go and read, you know, some

00:37:30.940 of the books, you know, what is it? Codes de Mez, for example. And, you know, Jesus and John

00:37:37.940 Wayne, which is one that everybody was touting and pointing to. And I'm going, this is not even

00:37:44.220 in the camp you know right this is this is out of bounds not even in the camp you know and this is

00:37:52.800 what we're what we're using and what we're touting for you know so i think now we're seeing um

00:37:59.340 a response on the other end where where people are saying okay fine if you want to throw that

00:38:05.380 terminology around um and not define it or define it poorly um you know the other one

00:38:12.800 the really popular one was um what was it was taking america back for god i forget the authors

00:38:19.100 of that one but that one had a lot of traction i can't remember but yeah but that one had a lot

00:38:23.740 of traction as well um and and at least you know made more of an effort to really define christian

00:38:30.400 nationalism but the way they defined it included jews and you know black people were included as

00:38:36.780 white christian nationalists and you know all this other sort of stuff um so it's now people

00:38:41.700 on the other side going okay fine here's where here's where we stand here's what we you know

00:38:48.140 understand in all of this um but again it's it's part of it's part of this same battle it's just

00:38:56.860 the next front in this in this same battle and we have to clarify it i think theology

00:39:04.780 theology sharpens over time and it sharpens with sharp disputes disagreements in fact in the

00:39:10.560 providence of god he often raises up heretics just so that the church will go back to the drawing

00:39:15.400 board and shore up their theology on the hypostatic union or so short you know and

00:39:19.980 when we forget that it's like yes there is a strength undoubtedly i'm confessing there's a

00:39:25.600 strength to church history but we forget that it that it took about 400 years to figure out who god

00:39:30.520 is you know and and and to figure out is that you know the dual nature of christ as the second

00:39:36.860 member of the trinity and and the way i see the big picture and it's part of this is my

00:39:40.980 post-millennialism talking but i you know the first thousand years it's like theology proper

00:39:45.320 doctrine of god the next thousand years soteriology right that's a big one let's let's figure to dial

00:39:50.060 that in with the reformation figure out how are people saved i i have a sneaking suspicion right

00:39:54.900 here on the beginning of this third millennium um since since christ and and his earthly ministry

00:40:01.220 i think christian ethics is going to be a big one i don't know if it'll be the one but i think you

00:40:06.400 know who is god um who is man and how is he saved soteriology but then christian ethics and i and i

00:40:13.840 think the civil magistrate is going to be a big part of that and our understanding of um how do

00:40:18.880 these things play out how does this apply how does you know go ahead it seems like you're going to

00:40:23.560 say something yeah and i'm saying even in in all of those things it was never new right there were

00:40:31.260 There were always people who were right on all of those things.

00:40:35.280 But the time, you know, it took time to sort of separate the wheat and the chad.

00:40:41.420 And it's the same here.

00:40:42.660 There are people who've been writing and thinking rightly on these issues for a long, long time.

00:40:51.700 And interestingly enough, what people are having to do is to go back to some of those people who were writing and thinking rightly on these issues, you know, in order to sort of, you know, backfill and move forward.

00:41:11.060 And it's like you said, it's a good thing because it sharpens.

00:41:15.120 It's absolutely necessary.

00:41:17.160 But here's the problem.

00:41:18.340 The problem is, like I said before, what the culture has done is it has emasculated us.

00:41:29.920 When we talk about sharp disagreement and sharp disagreement being used to sharpen us, that's very masculine.

00:41:43.540 As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

00:41:45.660 That's very masculine.

00:41:46.940 And our effeminate culture hates masculinity.

00:41:53.440 And because of that, it hates sharp disagreement.

00:41:57.040 And so sharp disagreement is no longer allowed.

00:41:59.580 It's just disqualification.

00:42:01.100 It's cancel culture, right?

00:42:03.100 You're not saying the right thing on this.

00:42:06.460 Therefore, you are disqualified. 1.00

00:42:09.600 You are wicked. 0.99

00:42:10.760 You are excommunicated. 1.00

00:42:12.960 Right.

00:42:14.640 Yep.

00:42:14.860 and and sometimes you can do it just with uh the method and and not even have to engage the message

00:42:21.840 right you can say that um well i don't like your tone i don't like that uh that you know there are

00:42:27.860 guys on your side using uh using memes you know or and so you're being harsh or you're being or

00:42:33.920 you might even say you know i don't like the font you know i yeah or it's not what it says it's what

00:42:41.580 it does right exactly you know i i'm over here just saying i long for the day voting when a

00:42:47.660 statement will be judged by the character of its content and not the color of its font

00:42:52.740 that's where i am i know all that being said i think that was a bad idea we changed the font but

00:42:58.700 but yeah but engaging the argument and not just dismissing um not just and and both sides can do

00:43:04.900 it and say like well well um you're you know because because there's the theo bro group and

00:43:10.560 a lot of them are on my side of the issue. And, uh, and so it can just be like, well, you're

00:43:15.120 effeminate, right? Because, uh, because we've been, uh, we're not complementarians anymore,

00:43:19.220 Votie. I don't know if you've kept up with this, but, uh, we've been patriarchal for about 15

00:43:23.280 minutes, right? We came into that doctrine, you know, myself included. And because we we've held

00:43:27.460 firmly to this doctrine for the last 15 minutes, you know, we'll dismiss anybody as being effeminate,

00:43:31.640 you know, if they don't agree with it. So we can do that. And then on the other side of the aisle,

00:43:35.920 It can be very much, this is harsh or this is whatever.

00:43:40.180 And then neither one actually has to engage theological substance.

00:43:44.020 So if we can get there, what I hear you saying is, no, we don't need a false, trite, shallow

00:43:50.640 sense of unity.

00:43:51.640 We need the true unity that comes providentially by God's grace through division, iron sharpening

00:43:58.700 iron.

00:43:59.320 But the problem is we can't even get, not only can we not get to the true unity, we can't

00:44:03.940 get to the true unity because we can't even get to the true division right now we still see

00:44:08.580 squabbling over um tone method um we need to i'd like to see some real division over arguments

00:44:16.040 over substance and and that goes for both sides by the way like but we really need to engage

00:44:21.800 make me an argument uh from the bible give me bible uh for why christian culture is a net

00:44:31.880 negative. I understand Christian culture in a societal at-large way can produce or at least 0.99

00:44:40.540 influence nominal Christianity, nominal seminaries, nominal doctrine, nominal preaching to the point

00:44:47.880 where the gospel is assumed, eventually neglected, eventually utterly lost, to produce less

00:44:54.280 conversion. Now, but wait a second, you're making me that argument. Do you catechize your kids?

00:44:59.760 did you take them out of public school and put them in a christian school or home school

00:45:04.740 so in the sphere of your individual family you're treating christian culture not as though it's

00:45:11.580 salvific because no one's saying that but you are treating it as though it is good that the law of

00:45:18.080 god has an evangelistic sense no man will be saved by works as done unto the law but it is a tutor

00:45:23.140 and the law insofar as it accurately reflects god's holiness it therefore reveals man's

00:45:29.620 sinfulness and drives us to christ as the only one who can fill that infinite chasm

00:45:34.420 yeah but you're doing that in your home can we do that in a country can we do that in a country

00:45:39.740 but think about what i said before with you know the the jesus movement and the church growth

00:45:45.540 movement and all these other things there was an anti-intellectualism and an anti-confessionalism

00:45:50.900 And because of that, you know, talking about the law, talking about the threefold division of the law, talking about the three uses of the law, this is foreign to an entire generation, right?

00:46:07.880 And so, you know, you're already talking about something that's two, three steps ahead of where people are ready to, yeah, of where people are ready to engage.

00:46:20.360 So, again, there's a lot of backfilling that needs to be done.

00:46:27.400 And, well, anyway, you know, by God's grace.

00:46:30.280 You're absolutely right.

00:46:32.180 Well, this has been so helpful for me.

00:46:34.160 I know it'll be helpful for our listeners.

00:46:35.960 Pretty much everybody who follows me just, you know, is watching my stuff whenever you don't have content for them to watch.

00:46:44.680 So I know that everybody will be excited about this episode, getting to watch you.

00:46:49.380 Any final thoughts that you have for us or anything that you want to plug with your ministry,

00:46:53.760 things that people can pray for or follow or pay attention to?

00:46:57.200 Yeah.

00:46:57.560 I mean, just this new curriculum piece that we have out, this Fault Lines curriculum

00:47:02.560 piece, I mean, I think it's an important tool.

00:47:06.720 There are some people who've read the book for whom this will be helpful in, you know,

00:47:11.520 sort of going deeper into that message.

00:47:13.920 Some people who haven't for whom this will be a helpful introduction.

00:47:19.380 We're looking at things from, you know, sort of different view and different perspective.

00:47:24.460 And I think it will also be helpful for engaging in this kind of sharpening that you were talking about.

00:47:31.120 You know, sometimes having somebody else who's the lightning rod helps, you know, helps to soften the blow.

00:47:40.080 And so, you know, our hope is that people will get a hold of this and that they'll use it and that it'll be helpful.

00:47:45.800 in, if nothing else, furthering, you know,

00:47:50.180 those iron sharpening iron kind of discussions

00:47:52.500 around some of these issues.

00:47:55.880 Amen.

00:47:56.600 Where can people find that?

00:47:58.320 They can find it at Salem Now.

00:48:01.580 Okay.

00:48:02.260 Yeah, Salem Now, SalemNow.com, SalemNow.org.

00:48:06.320 Okay.

00:48:06.960 I don't know which one it is.

00:48:07.620 And I'm pretty sure you guys have an app too.

00:48:09.140 You can go to the app store and download Salem Now.

00:48:11.340 Yeah.

00:48:11.920 Great.

00:48:12.760 And selfishly, I'll just plug my little thing too.

00:48:15.680 that if anybody is wondering, sure, there's a bunch of different, there's a wide spectrum of

00:48:20.880 people who'd have different views of what Christian nationalism is. But anybody who wants to know my

00:48:26.080 team, and I'm not putting voting on our team, we'll wait, let him read the statement. He'll sign it,

00:48:29.880 but we'll give him time. But for those who are on my team, guys like William Wolfe, you know,

00:48:35.320 guys like Dusty Deavers, our statement, if you want to read it, it's a statement on

00:48:40.620 christiannationalism.com statement on christiannationalism.com um and our goal is uh is

00:48:46.460 not to make a name for ourself our goal is that you could actually understand what our position is

00:48:49.880 so that we can see i've got a sneaking suspicion that there might be less disagreement than we

00:48:54.120 think there is and and perhaps we could get on the same team and if not at least we can actually

00:48:58.680 engage the substance and and uh and that's what we need we need iron sharpening iron well voti

00:49:04.160 thank you so much for your time your graciousness your willingness to come on the show i know you're

00:49:07.660 a busy man. And we hope to have you on the show sometime again in the future. Thank you, brother.

00:49:12.440 It's been great. Thank you for the work that you've been doing. It's really encouraging and

00:49:17.060 I appreciate it. Thank you. God bless. And thank you guys for tuning into this episode and we'll

00:49:22.880 see you again with Theology Applied next week. We've been privileged by Vodibaka Ministries to

00:49:28.220 be given a piece of their content to share with all of you. Vodibaka has a new teaching series

00:49:34.640 fleshing out the ideas that he popularized in his book, Fault Lines.

00:49:39.400 So if you've read the book, but you want further discussion, further explanation and biblical

00:49:44.880 teaching on that issue, the things that are dividing us today, not only in the culture

00:49:50.400 at large, but even within the church, then you've got to check out their new series,

00:49:55.380 Fault Lines with Vodibach and Ministries.

00:49:58.160 And here is a video that they've given us permission to share with you.

00:50:01.400 It's the introduction to this new teaching series.

00:50:04.640 enjoy. I wrote Fault Lines because of my love for the church. We're doing this project because

00:50:12.080 of love for the church. I honestly believe that the critical social justice movement represents

00:50:20.500 a threat, an existential threat, not a threat to Christianity per se, because Christianity can't

00:50:27.860 be threatened. God is on his throne. He will protect his bride. However, it represents a

00:50:34.140 threat to unity within the body. If we got to act like that the disadvantages between us

00:50:40.800 are cultural and are not systemic, then we can't be together. Critical race theorists want to

00:50:46.580 deliver us from the basement low ambitions of a thin emaciated view of equality. It represents

00:50:55.600 a threat to the clarity of the message that we communicate. Whiteness becomes the standard by 1.00

00:51:04.420 which all good theology is judged. Whiteness is rooted in plunder, in theft, in slavery, 0.97

00:51:11.840 genocide of Native Americans sitting on stolen land. So that if it's right theology, it's written 0.96

00:51:17.860 by a white scholar who is contextualizing that theology for white audiences the gospel will

00:51:26.840 always be the gospel however we are not always faithful in the way that we communicate the

00:51:33.160 gospel because silence is too high price to pay to be unified when our necks are under a police

00:51:40.440 sleep. Anti-racists fundamentally reject savior theology. That goes right in line with racist

00:51:49.640 ideas and racist theology. And we're not always faithful in the way that we apply the gospel.

00:51:55.260 When you sign up for this congregation, you're signing up to be part of racial justice. And if

00:51:59.760 that's not for you, then this church is not for you. The solution is fundamentally, yes, the gospel,

00:52:05.020 the cross, the resurrection, but also dethroning white supremacy in all of the forms in which it

00:52:13.860 shows up in Christian spaces. So the goal here is to fight for faithfulness, to fight for the truth

00:52:22.560 of that gospel, to fight for the bride of Christ, to fight for unity in the bride of Christ.

00:52:30.620 It's a breakthrough if you can get white people to acknowledge that our race privileges us in this society.

00:52:37.300 That is like the second coming.

00:52:39.840 Virtually no white man thinks they are guilty.

00:52:42.920 You have to push and push and push to the point where, hey, wait a minute, I think you're pushing an agenda.

00:52:49.560 Well, you're finally listening.

00:52:51.020 My psychosocial development was inculcated in the water of white supremacy.

00:52:56.400 I have grown up with this invisible kind of bag of privilege.

00:53:01.720 Like, I am a racist.

00:53:04.660 A system in which whiteness and white people are central and seen as inherently superior to people of color. 0.99

00:53:12.920 I'm going to struggle with racism and white supremacy until the day I die and get my glorified body. 0.98

00:53:18.220 What I'm talking about right now is white privilege. 0.98

00:53:21.100 Because I'm immersed in a culture where I benefit from racism all the time. 0.89

00:53:25.780 Nothing makes Anglos more angry than the idea of white privilege.

00:53:30.740 The Bible is very clear about the issue of justice.

00:53:35.180 What does the Lord require of you to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?

00:53:41.780 We know this from Micah 6.8.

00:53:44.360 And so justice is not optional for the people of God.

00:53:48.840 That's why it's so critical that we understand what justice is.

00:53:53.180 one of the dangers of the social justice movement is that it uses terminology that on the surface

00:54:02.540 sounds like it ought to be what we as Christians are about. Social justice. Am I against justice?

00:54:12.880 Of course not. I'm for justice. Anti-racism. Am I pro-racism? Of course not.

00:54:18.460 so what we need to do is get behind these terms get behind these words and look at two things

00:54:29.300 number one look at what people mean when they use them in this cultural moment and number two

00:54:36.780 evaluate that in light of what the bible says about the same issues so for example when we

00:54:45.740 talk about justice from a biblical perspective. Justice means the righteous application,

00:54:52.440 the impartial application of the law of God in a given circumstance. We're told that we're not

00:54:59.640 to be impartial to the poor or to the rich. We have to apply God's law equally across the board.

00:55:09.400 Social justice means something very different. And so if we're going to have conversations

00:55:15.320 about justice, if we're going to have conversations about contemporary issues of our day,

00:55:22.160 we're going to have to do so in light of what the Word of God has to teach about all of these issues

00:55:30.200 and while evaluating the cultural moment.

00:55:36.860 You know, I've come a long way on a lot of these issues.

00:55:40.360 I am a guy who had as probably the biggest hero of my life, Malcolm X.

00:55:52.100 I am a guy who was always very Afrocentric, very, you could say, social justice oriented.

00:56:03.660 As a believer, I came to a crossroads, and I recognized that, for the most part, I identified a lot more with my blackness than I did with my Christianity.

00:56:19.980 For the most part, it was much more important to me that I was black than it was that I was Christian.

00:56:28.860 Over time, I had to come to grips with the fact that in Christ, at the foot of the cross,

00:56:36.820 there is no male or female, there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free.

00:56:43.660 Over time, I had to come to grips with the fact that Christ died not only to reconcile us vertically to the Father,

00:56:53.840 but to reconcile us horizontally with one another.

00:56:56.520 and that I am a member of the body of Christ

00:56:59.780 and that nothing supersedes that.

00:57:03.040 Nothing is more important than that.

00:57:05.920 And it is that realization

00:57:08.060 and my desire to see that unity manifested

00:57:14.080 within the body of Christ.

00:57:17.020 If you're doing this study with a group,

00:57:20.380 my hope is that this would be a place

00:57:23.620 where you can be open,

00:57:24.940 where you can be honest, a place where you can evaluate the narratives that are flying

00:57:32.860 all around you, and a place where you can judge those things, not according to your

00:57:40.320 feelings, but according to the truth of the scriptures, according to what thus saith

00:57:47.580 the Lord. I do believe that justice is incredibly important, but justice is only important to the

00:57:58.260 degree that it is the justice that God demands. To that end, we have to be right about what the

00:58:07.800 word justice means and about what God requires of his people in this critical moment.

00:58:17.580 Can I be frank with you for just a second, right here at the end?

00:58:20.960 Look, some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry,

00:58:24.280 and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you.

00:58:27.360 I cannot thank you enough.

00:58:30.000 However, some of you, you just, you can't afford it.

00:58:33.700 In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it.

00:58:36.800 Let's be honest. 0.91

00:58:37.700 I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. 0.97

00:58:41.620 Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three years 0.91

00:58:49.740 due to COVID. We have written checks that we simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people

00:58:56.680 change the definition of a recession. We are living in a recession right now regardless.

00:59:03.580 Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store. You cannot support

00:59:09.880 financially this ministry at this time, nor should you, but you could still help us tremendously.

00:59:16.760 I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one minute of your time. Leave us a

00:59:23.800 five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be.

00:59:30.520 This is the way the system works. We want to be innocent as doves, but shrewd as vipers.

00:59:36.420 We need to be strategic.

00:59:38.680 You leave us a five-star review, and our podcast shows up for more people.

00:59:43.640 And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of

00:59:50.400 life gets out there.

00:59:52.480 Help us get it out there.

00:59:54.180 Thanks for tuning in.

The NXR Podcast - May 09, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Christian Nationalism Debate And The Need For Unity w Voddie Baucham

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